


When I lost myself, I thought of you

by nouuxnouux



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, I Tried, I'm Sorry, M/M, My First Fanfic, My First Work in This Fandom, Not Beta Read, OTP Feels, Oh My God, POV Bucky Barnes, Past Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Please Don't Hate Me, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 17:41:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1787530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nouuxnouux/pseuds/nouuxnouux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes was a Howling Commando, Steve Rogers’ right hand man, and Steve Rogers was Captain America.</p>
<p>Is.</p>
<p>He is the winter soldier, that’s all he is, so why is that him standing next to Steve Rogers, laughing and smiling at him like he hung the moon and the stars?</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I lost myself, I thought of you

**Author's Note:**

> Ohh God, so this is my first fan fiction. I wrote this months ago on Google Drive and am now finally posting it cause I'm a weenie and didn't want to before. So yeah, unbeta-ed so any mistakes are my own. I really hope it's okay and it's nothing too specific, just Bucky's pov before the war and post- CA:TWS. 
> 
> Enjoy, loves.

 

The night sky over Brooklyn was clear and even though it was late-July, there wasn’t any sweltering humidity that promised Bucky would wake up in sheets sticky with his sweat. It was the type of night he where he would go out and chase skirts at the dance hall. Instead, he was up on the rickety fire escape, languid and with Steve sketching wordlessly at his side. They didn’t have many nights like this, where Steve wasn’t a hacking, sickly mess on the bed or where they both ate a somewhat filling dinner. Bucky acted like he was too tired to go out dancing the night away and chose to stay in with Steve because he really just wanted to enjoy Steve, not in pain or in danger of succumbing to a disease.

He could say it’s because he’s a sap and really just cares about Steve in that brotherly way everyone perceives them to be like. He knows better, though he’s never really acknowledged it. He can’t acknowledge it; queers get beaten, live in fear, killed. He sure as hell wouldn’t want to go through that shit, but he’d rather die than let anything like that happen to Steve because of him. He’s sure that even if Steve had any types of feelings like his, Bucky wouldn’t want to do anything to endanger him. He has a shit sense of self-preservation and it’s because any type of preservation is all invested in Steve.

His eyes flick over and glance at Steve, knobby knees drawn up to his concave chest and head bent down, cerulean eyes narrowed and brow scrunched with a level of concentration that Bucky is aware he himself lacks. The sketch pad is against his slim thighs and he can hear the soft scratch of pencil against grainy paper. Bucky may not have an artistic eye like Steve, but he knows a beautiful thing when he sees it, and Steve is dazzling.

Girls their age laugh and any older woman eyes little Steve Rogers with sympathy, and everything they say is the same, how he’d have girls lining up all the blocks if he just grew and filled out a bit, blah blah blah. Bucky wanted to tell them all off and knew that if they could see him the way he saw Steve, they would be left breathless and totally enamored by him. And if they needed him to grow a couple of inches for that to happen, well, they sure as fuck didn’t deserve Steve, then.

He had allowed for his gaze to linger on Steve a little more than he usual. Steve’s eyes flicked up and met with his. He frowned and Bucky couldn’t help but notice how pouty it was. “What cha’ staring at, Buck?” He asked, all wholesomeness and innocence and every noble thing Bucky wasn’t. Bucky smirked while his heart seized in his throat. He’d go to hell before he’d tarnish Steven Grant Rogers in any way. “Nothin’ ‘cept your stupid mug, punk.” He snickered when Steve reached out and attempted to kick his shin. “Easy. I’m just happy that, y’know" he turned his eyes out to the horizon and felt the weight of his words on his tongue.

“Just happy you’re not inside, you’re as healthy as you can be. Just glad ‘cause the last time you were sick, you were basically dying.” His voice catches a little on the last word and he hopes Steve doesn’t notice. Steve snorts indignantly and returns to his sketch. “You think that every time. How many times have I gotten sick since you’ve known me, Buck? Haven’t kicked the bucket yet.” He doesn’t sound angry, but Bucky knows that it hits a nerve. Bucky sighs. “Yeah, I shoulda known it’d take a lot more than a fever to kill your stubborn ass.” He grins as brightly as he can and he only hopes it doesn’t look as forced as it feels. Steve makes a clicking noise with his tongue but there’s a ghost of a smile on his lips.

“Damn right.” He murmurs. There’s that lull between them that’s so natural and comfortable that Bucky loses his focus on Steve’s face again. Finally, without looking up from his sketch (seriously, Bucky thinks, what the fuck does he draw that takes him nearly two hours) he says “If I’m boring you, just go to bed.” Bucky startles and chuckles humorlessly. “Why would you say that, Stevie?” The flinch he gets in response just bemuses him. “You’re staring at me like you’re smashed and your patience has run thin.” Bucky is the one who cringes this time. Was he that obvious? And when did Steve become so observant? Why was he quiet about it for so long? Steve sighs and sets the sketchpad to the side. “I know it gets boring watching me draw.”

Oh, that was very untrue.

“And thanks for keeping me company. But I know you’re tired and you don’t have to stay if you really don’t want to. Go, sleep. Before you pass out here, ‘cause I ain’t dragging you back inside.” He jokes. Bucky gets up and stretches because he really does want to stay, but not if it means Steve is gonna squirm every time he looks his way. Besides, he is tired. Sort of. “See you inside, Buck. ‘Night.”

Bucky feels defeated and stupid because really, what is he supposed to feel defeated about? That Steve sent him away, but he could have stayed? None of it makes sense. It bugs him how sometimes he feels hopeless because it feels like he’s so obvious and Steve is so oblivious to what it all really means. Of course he is, ‘cause he wouldn’t be looking for those kinds of signs from Bucky.

It’s all rationalized, but it doesn’t make it sting any less.

 

 - - - - - - - - - -- - -

Bucky thinks that maybe if he went out and found a meaningless guy to fuck senseless, it would get those urges out of his system. Yeah, it would be like sneaking some chocolate to satisfy a sweet tooth.

When he masturbates, he tries to imagine pretty girls with red lips, guys with nice physiques and pale skin, but his mind always brings him back to images of half -lidded blue eyes peering up at him between his legs, slender hands wrapped around his girth, full lips parted and closing the distance between him and-

Okay, maybe he needs to fuck a few guys, a few different ways to get it out of his system.

 

 - - - - - - - - - -- - -

Pearl Harbor has been blown up by the Japanese, and everyone knows war is officially coming. People cheer, content to be putting their lives on the line for such a righteous cause, and it seems to be contagious to everyone but Bucky. Even Steve is thrilled and practically bouncing on his heels like a kid on Christmas, yapping just as quickly and excitedly. Bucky can’t help but think this means he’ll get shipped out, and of course Steve won’t, not that he’d want him to.

Who’s going to take care of Steve when he’s off taking care of Nazis?

 

 - - - - - - - - - -- - -

Bucky is sitting in a bar in London and he can’t help but notice an attractive man in a corner watching him attentively. He can’t meet his gaze because he can’t even try to do that when his unit is near. Not that he’d want to, because he doesn’t want any man unless he happens to have golden hair, clear blue eyes and a wicked mouth that doesn’t know when to shut it.

Instead he stumbles out with a girl who is nearly as slim and petite as Steve, and when he’s pushing up against her skirt in a shadowy back alley, he screws his eyes shut and imagines he’s not fucking the girl, but tries not to think about that this is what it’s like if it was-

 

 - - - - - - - - - -- - -

The next time he sees Steve, he’s not 5’2 and and a mere ninety pounds soaking wet. His face is the same, except for the masculine, angular shape of his jaw, the eyes still exceptionally blue and framed with long lashes and his mouth is still plump and flushed. He’s a foot taller, and built like one of those Greek Gods he remembers reading about in high school, and it seems like a lifetime ago. But it’s Steve, now resilient and radiating perfection, who tears him off the metal table in this factory that reeks of synthetic chemicals. It’s Steve who frees him and the other captives and lead them back to the unit who believed them to be dead.

It’s Steve, and not Captain America, because Captain America is only a title attached to Steve Rogers’ name, whom he follows faithfully after every suicide mission. It’s Steve who he’s still watching out for, focused like never before to eliminate any threat in proximity to Steve with his gun and his eyes and patience that needs work. It’s Steve who he still admires, body and mind, because Captain America wouldn’t exist without Steve Rogers and anyone how would try to disagree with that is a goddamn fool.

It’s Steve who he still aches for, who he smiles for, truly, when he looks away and he is hammered in a bar on gin and whiskey. It’s Agent Carter whom he envies because all of a sudden, Steve looks at her with the same type of esteem and utter adoration he once only had for Bucky and Bucky knows Carter is a catch. He laughs it off and simply acts like it’s jealousy that Steve is the one hogging all the attention from the dames he once chased.

The Howling Commandos are a tight knit bunch, and it couldn’t be argued that they were brothers in arm. Bucky was unofficially second in command because he was Steve’s right hand man and the most faithful of the bunch. He didn’t wear a reckless smirk anymore after Zola’s and nobody really knew that except for Steve. He wasn’t as easy and wise-cracking like before, but he trusted Steve and would back him up fiercely, blindly, more like it.

If only they all knew why.

 

 - - - - - - - - - -- - -

The moment the metal bar snaps in his hand, he is falling backwards into a snow dusted oblivion and he is still reaching out for Steve.

He screams and Steve screams and he can only hold a hand out that Steve will never get the chance to catch.

He can’t die. Not like this.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

He awakens once in the snow, pain shooting sharp through every point in his body except his left arm. It’s cold, freezing actually, and he’s not coherent enough to be sure if he’s really dead or asleep or really alive.

The images of a train with a blown out on the side and a familiar god-like man are burnt in his mind.

_Steve...?_

 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

The next time he wakes up, he is no longer in the snow. He is on some type of examination table, and the room he is in looks familiar in a way he can’t determine. He still feels like he is made of lead, but he also feels a type of hollowness in his core. He groans and attempts to turn over but feels disconnected to his body.

Foreign words are whispered in hushed tones above him, in his ear, all around him, but he can’t see any of them. He can hear the heavily accented English centimeters from his ear.

“Rest, soldier. You are broken, must be repaired to use again.”

A pin prickle somewhere on his shoulder, maybe close to the base of his neck, and then the world is spiraling, spiraling away into the blackness he is has grown acquainted to.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

He has a gun in his hand, and he has been in position for almost 5 hours, waiting for the targets. He doesn’t notice the dull throbbing in his calves, and doesn’t will the target to show up so he could get it over with already. He waits and waits and it doesn’t ever occur to him if this is a waste of time because he can’t question why he has to wait. All he knows is he has an order to complete the mission.

He hears them coming before he sees them.

A sleek, black sedan appears and it’s a bright contrast to the dusty Iran backdrop. He shoots at a front tire and its a few seconds of unfolding mayhem before it falls on its side. The target will be guarded of course, they told him that. They didn’t tell him who, exactly, would be guarding him. He sees a figure crawl out, too small to be that of this man’s.

The flaming hair is an insignia, like a flag he’s seen before but he doesn’t know to which country it belongs to. It’s a woman, petite like a ballerina, and he has a fleeting thought of her hair smelling like smoke and insipid shampoo. She is hurt; she must have broken her left arm, shattered, because she is mostly dragging herself with the right. She pulls out the target and attempts to stand him up.

He must still be alive because she gently shakes him and braces her hands under his arms, perhaps encouraging him to stand. He lines his shot up and waits. He could kill the both of them easily, but something holds him back from killing the woman.

He thinks she _can't_ be a widow; he has trained almost all of them himself. Maybe she is, and she is also a defector.

She deserves to die.

It’s what his mind thinks, but not what he does. He can't, not really. She attempts to pull the man up, his head on her abdomen.

Perfect.

He pulls the trigger and he can see a spray of crimson coming from either her or the target, probably both. She slumps to her side, curls up, and rolls away. She hides behind the car. She is in no danger.

He pulls out his comm and hears static before he hears his handler barking at him, demanding a mission report. “Status?’ “Target: eliminated. One possible casualty.” He receives commands to go to the extraction point and wait for the handlers to retrieve him. He gets up to leave and wavers for a millisecond, pondering if he should actually execute her as a precaution, before he turns and slinks away.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - - -

He’s sure he knows the woman with fiery hair. There are fragments, all loosely tied together, of her. He knows what her smile looks like, and they both know where to touch to make the other fall apart. He knows she is capable of making soft, tender noises.

There are dreams, but not as many like there is with a man.

The man is attractive and like a ghost. He might be a past target that was probably a good fuck.

A man he might have known, he doesn’t know from where, but he knows he is striking and that he brings a heat to his chest, one that is alien and consuming.

He might have been more than a good fuck.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - - -

When he wakes up, he is ordered to kill Director Nicholas Fury. The man who instructs him to do so is Alexander Pierce, and he has no reason to trust him, but he doesn’t distrust him either.

He is compliant and finds Fury in an apartment and shoots him through a window, after he escaped the first assault. He is chased, he doesn’t look back, not until he almost jumps from the roof and he feels something tearing through the air, hurtling towards him.

The shield is caught with the metal arm. He sees the man and-

He flings it back and disappears before he tries anything. It’s not possible.

He doesn’t exist.

 

 - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Who the hell is Bucky?"

He doesn’t know anybody named Bucky, but when he says the name, it feels light, like he’s said that one name a thousand times, a hundred different ways. The man looking at him is unfamiliar and like he is everything all at the same time.

He might have said "Bucky" just as many times and in the same ways, maybe like a prayer. 'Bucky' obviously means something to him.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Captain America lays down his shield and pleads with him, he doesn’t want to fight. The winter soldier is ordered to eliminate all threats and he will do it. The Captain stands before him, a brilliant, proud symbol with the face of a young man and the expression of a man who’s lived too long, and is worn down by life.

He might be just a bit reluctant to fight the captain.

 

 - - - - - - - - - -- - -

Captain America falls into the Potomac, and it seems like he’s seen something like this before, and it was different in a way. It doesn't have to turn out the same. He falls forward, these feelings drowning him and he doesn’t know how to handle this situation, but he falls and reaches and grabs him.

He waits until the captain is breathing and drags his own body, which feels leaden now, somewhere and yet he doesn’t know where.

The world around him is in disarray, and the only thing he can do is run.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bucky Barnes was a Howling Commando, Steve Rogers’ right hand man, and Steve Rogers was Captain America.

Is.

He is the winter soldier, that’s all he is, so why is that him standing next to Steve Rogers, laughing and smiling at him like he hung the moon and the stars?

 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

He waits months before he reveals himself.

The apartment Steve Rogers lives in is, unsurprisingly, easy to break into. He knows he is gone and doesn’t know what to do. He can wait, and Rogers can find him serenely perched on his couch. Instead, he searches, out of habit, for any bugs. He comes across pictures in the bedroom, photographs and sketches. He finds his face –James Buchanan Barnes’ – everywhere. Pictures of his face, smirking, cheerful in black and white. Calm, neutral and knowing on paper. Of course the Captain would have pictures of Barnes. They were best friends, after all.

Perhaps, there was more to it than that.

He hears the door click open and he goes absolutely still. He strains his ears and the footfalls are too soft, almost inaudible, to be that of the larger than life Captain America. It's not the Captain - Natalia.

The door opens and he hasn’t reached for the gun, knowing she would know he’s not there to complete a mission. The bedroom door creaks open. He hears the breath she draws in. “James,”

“Natalia,” his voice is gruff and rusty from his sparse use of it. She doesn’t move but his back is turned facing her. “We’ve been looking for you.” She says quietly. He coughs and he thinks he wanted it to sound like a laugh. “You know you wouldn’t find me unless I wanted to be found. I thought you’d remember that much about me, Natalia.” His tone is sharp and mirthless but she won’t care and take offense to it.

She sighs. “I know that, of course. Steve is relentless and refuses to give up on you.” Her voice is almost tender when she speaks of Rogers and he can’t help but think that they might be lovers. That idea makes him reel internally.

“When is he returning?” Is all he inquires. He turns and she might be smiling in that twisted way that only professional killers like themselves can. “A week. He’s in Romania, looking for you.” His shoulders slump. “I hope you know I won't hesitate to kill you. I assume you want to speak to Steve. He's an idiot for not giving up on you. Try anything on him and you'll be dead before you even know it's me.” There is no venom in her words, and it’s so eerily casual. “If you even try anything with him James, I _will_ kill you. Know you will be watched.” Her emerald eyes are glacial and it amuses him faintly.

He won’t kill Steve Rogers. He just wants to talk to Steve Rogers, maybe see if he can recover his past if he is Bucky Barnes.

Natalia leaves him and he abandons the apartment not long after.

 

 - - - - - - - - - -- - -

One week later, he is back in the apartment and is waiting patiently in the living room. He hears the front door being unlocked and a sudden wave of apprehension rushes him. He can’t back out now. The door falls open is Steve Rogers is there, fussing with his keys and lost in thought.

He clears his throat, so he won't give Rogers a heart attack when he looks up. He's a little considerate and really doesn't want Rogers to die. That might be Bucky Barnes who is still looking out for his best friend. Rogers freezes and looks up slowly, cobalt eyes peering under what might be the most ridiculous set of-

"Bucky?" His voice is small and choking on hope. It makes the man who's most likely Bucky Barnes uncomfortable.

He shifts where he's sitting. "I-I don't know. Maybe?" It sounds pathetic and Steve Rogers has to know that.

Rogers approaches him slowly, deliberately, and drops to his knees right in front of the soldier. They're not touching, but he is hyper aware of how close they are together, how easy it would be to reach up and strangle the color out of him, how little space there is for him to close between their faces.

Between their mouths.

His slate eyes look into Rogers', and he's never seen so much clear anguish in anyone. He is startled when he feels a warm hand rest on the back of his neck. "You've known me your whole life. We were best friends, we were all each other had." His voice catches and it feels like everything has gone deadly still. "You don't remember being Bucky Barnes, but I remember you, how you worried worse than my Ma every time I got sick, how all the dames loved you..." He hasn't cried yet, but he's ready to come apart at the seams.

But he is curious and wants to know. If he is Bucky Barnes, Barnes wants to know something, something he was too afraid to ask Steve all those decades ago.

"You were jealous." It's a lifeless statement and it doesn't shock Rog- Steve.

" 'Course I was." His smile is rueful. "I-"

"No." He interrupts, and he feels a little bad at the expression Steve has. "No, you weren't jealous of me. The girls. You- Were you jealous of them?" Steve's jaw goes slack. A tremor runs through his body and he doesn't know what to expect for once.

"I, I, I thought I was- it was because you were so handsome. Everyone liked you so easily. I thought it was that." His face is growing red. He looks away. "I thought I just wanted to be like you. The way you looked, how you acted, but-" Steve stammers and he picks up where he can't finish.

"You took the serum, and nothing changed?" He whispers. "You wanted me. I remember, I wanted you and I see you, smaller, skinnier, and every feeling I have is like a hit to the stomach. I thought you were good, so good, and it made me feel wrong."

These words are pouring out of his mouth and he can't stop them. He can only assume it's the decades of repression and that Steve isn't denying anything. "You were perfect to me, and even though I felt like shit, every....memory? Each one with you is just happiness. Happiness because I was with you and shit because I couldn't have you, I wasn't good enough for you." He laughs and its as hallow as he's felt these past seventy years.

Steve is still, unmoving in front of him. "I think...I loved you. Still, maybe. I don't remember much, but I remember all of that. It's the only thing I remember from him."

He's rambling and suddenly there's a sniff and, fuck, Steve is crying.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

He was Bucky Barnes, and might be him again one day, but he's not at this moment.

He is someone who has returned dazed and damaged from Steve Rogers' past. He is someone who has loved him for seventy odd years. He is resting on his couch in his quite little apartment while Steve is in the kitchen, fixing a meal. It's very domestic and seemingly normal, and it's not in a single sense.

He confessed his love to Steve Rogers and he cried for twenty minutes before wandering off into the kitchen, nose still red and eyes watery.

He confessed his love after seven decades and they're both impossibly young and strong with a bloodstained past. He has killed dozens and Steve is a glorious national symbol.

None of this is normal.

What does he do now? Stick around? Do what? Hunt down HYDRA? He can't decide.

Steve appears out of the kitchen and asks softly "Can I call you Bucky?"

Bucky was Steve's best friend. He doesn't know what he is to him right now.

"James, might be better." He mumbles. "Alright," he pauses. "James," his face reveals a storm of thought. "You should know I've loved you, too, since then."

Yeah, none of this is normal.

What do they do, now that they both know they're both in love with each other? He smiles faintly, and it doesn't feel strange on his face.

"I can stay. See where this goes."

They look at each other, and the emotions that run through Steve's face are ones he can't name. But they are strong and he feels them in his core. Maybe Steve sees something like that in his own eyes, once dull gray and utterly blank.

He could kiss Steve. He has all the time in the world get to know Steve, and Steve might want to wait, too. A part of him, maybe the ghost of Bucky Barnes, tells him he's had seventy years to wait and it's a storm of not wanting to take advantage and wanting to just seize this opportunity and just fuck on floor, couch, wherever. If he crosses the room and cups Steve's face, rubs a thumb on his lower lip and finally, finally, brings his chapped lips to Steve's warm, full ones, well.

Perhaps that wasn't the old Bucky, entirely.


End file.
